Façade
by Prophetic Fire
Summary: Cinch never left the apartment. Not without his helmet, anyway. It wasn't that he didn't want to leave the apartment, it was just… Complicated. He knew what he looked like. An Adventures of Phire Brigade story.


Cinch never left the apartment. Not without his helmet, anyway.

'S why he was getting so good at the tech stuff lately, as Moustrap said.

It wasn't that he didn't _want_ to leave the apartment, it was just…

Complicated.

It was complicated.

He knew what he looked like. He still had one eye to see, anyway. Knew the way the burn scars plowed through the left side of his face, melted out his eye, chewed on his nose, crawled up his hairline, dragged at his mouth. Rippled down his body and out over his left arm in twisting waves. Knew the way the gashes from whatever creature that was gouged deeply into his jaw beneath his right ear, raking over his shoulder and down his back. Knew that there were more blaster burns and shrapnel holes peppered across even the parts of him that weren't normally visible. He knew what he looked like.

And he knew what people thought of how he looked. How the little boy had run away from him at the park, crying for his parents. How the group of shoppers had stared when he'd rounded the corner in front of them. The woman in front had screamed and dropped her bags. How the well-dressed person in the café had pointedly set their cutlery down and declared that they had "lost their appetite" when he sat down at the adjacent table.

How even his own brothers would whisper, or turn their gaze away, or how the medics' hands would hesitate before treating his wounds, as though he were somehow contagious.

(He should have been in Torrent Company. If he'd been in Torrent Company he could have had Kix. He seemed like a decent enough medic. But then, Kix had never seen Cinch. It probably wouldn't have been any different.)

He didn't know what he expected from the civilians. They barely saw clones to begin with, let alone out of armor. Of course they would stare. And with the four of them together, they were bound to draw attention. Peale and Nimbus were prime examples of clone fitness, handsome, strong. And people overlooked Mousetrap's limp to fuss over his charmingly boyish face. But Cinch? Well, that had been just one day out in public. So he didn't go out anymore.

They had everything they needed anyway. Based in a spacious penthouse with private rooftop access for speeder parking, all their food and clothing and supplies paid for by their anonymous benefactor. Plenty of holonet channels and holovid tutorials. He'd learned how to tweak all of their HUDs to better filter out the signal noise from Coruscant's constant chatter (You'd think their equipment could already do this effectively, but they weren't commandos or ARCs or whoever got that fancy Katarn shit.) He'd figured out how to hack the security feeds of the high rises around their apartment, to monitor possible safety concerns. He'd rewired Nimbus' prosthetic hand so Nimbus could generate an electrical current in the durasteel. He'd coded his own program into his comm to play lift tube music when someone called. There were so many experiments to try; his room was slowly collecting technological odds and ends.

What else was he gonna do if he didn't leave the house?

Besides, they had a balcony. And a pool. It wasn't as though he didn't get fresh air.

(Fresh air on Coruscant. Now there's a joke Peale would appreciate.)

It was…marginally better, at 79's. What with Phire Brigade becoming something of a legend in the GAR. Brothers still stared. And pointed. But usually the term "war hero" got floated around enough by the time Cinch took off his bucket that they didn't startle so much. Not that it would have made much difference, since he still hadn't been able to make eye contact with that cute Corrie Guard, much less talk to him.

Or that lady behind the counter in the caffa shop, who had insisted on comping all of their drinks. "Clones eat free," she'd said, even after Peale had proven that they could pay. And she'd smiled, and if Cinch hadn't already vowed to never go out in civvy clothes again he would have sworn it then and there, for the blush staining his mangled cheeks.

That had been a good part to that one day.

But one good part didn't make up for all the rest.

So he never left the apartment.

He'd leave it up to Peale and Mousetrap to bring him back a pastry and a drink from the caffa shop, and wonder if her hands had touched the paper cup.


End file.
